Tag: personal-development

Poetry Today

Toxic Leadership and Membership Retention Go Hand-in-Hand

Paragonwords

One of the hardest truths to face in any organization is this:
when leadership turns toxic, membership begins to erode.

It’s not ego that drives people away.
It’s exhaustion.
It’s the emotional weight of trying to serve beneath someone who confuses control with leadership, intimidation with accountability, and fear with respect.

A healthy leader understands that the heartbeat of any organization is its people.
Their willingness to serve, their passion, and their sense of belonging are all directly tied to how they are led.
When that leadership crosses boundaries, belittle, overthinks and induced chaos; when communication becomes condescending, decisions self-serving, and conflict resolution nonexistent, people naturally pull away. It’s not because they don’t care about the mission, but because they can no longer function under the dysfunction.

Toxic Leadership and Membership Retention Go Hand-in-Hand

The tragedy is that toxic leaders often misinterpret this withdrawal as ego or disloyalty, when in truth, it’s self-preservation.
No one wants to volunteer their time, heart, and energy in an environment that drains rather than develops them.
When leadership fails to recognize that they are the common denominator in the toxicity that is deeply rooted in the organization, the organization loses its roots.
And when the roots rot, the whole system begins to wither.

If leaders want to retain their members, they must start with self-awareness and self-evaluation.
They must ask:
Am I creating a space where people feel valued, or a space where they feel small?
Do my words inspire service, or do they silence it?

Leadership is not about power. It’s about people.
And if the people are leaving, it’s not their ego that needs examining, it’s the drama, negativity and the environment that’s pushing them away.

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Know the signs of toxic Leadership; here are five examples:

Image over impact
Public praise, donations, and recognition matter more than real help. Decisions prioritize optics, not outcomes.

Silencing dissent
Questions get labeled as disloyalty. Staff or volunteers feel pressure to agree, stay quiet, or leave.

Control masked as mission
Leaders use the cause to justify micromanagement, guilt, or overwork. Boundaries get framed as a lack of commitment.

Boundaries crossed, loyalty mistaken for friendship
Personal access is expected. Saying no feels like betrayal. Loyalty is rewarded with closeness, not respect.

People-pleasing and paranoia-driven behavior
Leaders pit people against each other, manage through triangulation, and assume others are talking or plotting against them.

If you recognize these patterns, seek support. You are not obligated to stay in an environment that harms your well-being, even when the mission is labeled as good. Service should not cost your dignity, peace, or health.

You can still make an impact without remaining in a toxic organization. Consider connecting with local businesses, community leaders, or city officials to serve your community in healthier, more transparent ways. There is more than one path to meaningful service, and you are allowed to choose the one that protects you.

Until next time; be good to yourself!

Poetry Today

The Power of Change: Writing Through Transformation

Paragonwords

As writers, we are often tasked with capturing the complexities of life, the moments of stillness, the bursts of inspiration, and the deep, often unsettling shifts that come with change. But perhaps the most difficult transformation to capture is the one that happens within ourselves.

Change is a universal experience, but it is also deeply personal. Whether it’s a shift in perspective, a loss of identity, or the quiet shedding of the old to make room for the new, writing offers us a way to reflect, process, and embrace the transformations that shape us.

This week, I’ve been reflecting on the theme of change in my own writing. I wrote a poem called “The Quiet Work of Becoming,” which explores the slow, quiet transformation we undergo throughout our lives. I found that writing about change allowed me to not only understand the shifting landscape of my own journey but also to celebrate the beauty in it.

Through the process of writing, we become more aware of how change, no matter how subtle, has shaped us. Writing gives us the space to look back at the chapters we’ve outgrown, and at the same time, it empowers us to step boldly into the unknown.

When you sit down to write about change, don’t be afraid to dive into the messy, uncomfortable parts. Don’t rush through the discomfort. Embrace it. Because it’s in that very discomfort that growth happens. It’s in the stretching, the breaking, the reshaping, that our most honest work can emerge.

So, to all my fellow writers out there, what transformations are you going through right now? How are you capturing the changes in your own work?

Let’s continue writing through our becoming. Together, we can build something beautiful from the moments that shift us.

“The Quiet Work of Becoming”

There is no ceremony in the shift,
no fanfare to mark the moment
when the soil starts to stir inside of you.
It is not a grand unfolding,
but a small, steady erosion,
as if the earth has always been
waiting beneath the surface
to release something new.

You do not know when the change begins,
a bruise that deepens over time,
a knot worked loose in the night
by your own hands.
The old skin sloughs away
without a sound,
a quiet rebellion
against the life that once fit you.

The ache of it is not dramatic,
it does not scream in neon colors,
but lingers like a forgotten word
on the edge of your tongue.
Some days you wake and realize
you are no longer the same,
but you can’t say when or why
or how you left behind
the version that was.

No one tells you that becoming
does not happen in leaps,
but in a thousand small steps,
each one so small you think
it couldn’t possibly matter,
and yet.
look at the distance.

You are not the person you were yesterday,
and yet, when you look closely,
you can still see the traces
of who you used to be,
woven into the spaces
between what you have learned
and what you are still learning.

It happens in the spaces
no one watches,
the work you do
without audience or applause.
And when you finally look up,
you realize:
you have always been becoming
something else,
not better, not worse,
just different.
Just finally,
you.

@paragonwords

With Gratitude

Nikki